O/C problem with Opteron 165

Ok, I was working my way up through the megahertz with Clockgen last night all was going well, I stopped at FSB of 250 with my memory at 1:1 and let it run GO-ORTHOS for about 20 hours with no errors. Great deal! Well, I come home and start up again, with the memory at a lower divider than the night before and I crash at 260FSB. Weird, considering the chip was good to 2.5Ghz stock on air with the previous owner. Anyway I start up again, with the previous 20 hour GO run and start up Clockgen again, and then I notice that the clock speed is bouncing between 255FSB and 260FSB! WTF? I'm used to seeing it bounce a megahertz on the CPU but 5 MHZ FSB?!?. 45Mhz CPU speed! Ok, so I shut down Clockgen and reboot and set the FSB to 260 and the RAM on a 3/4 divider. Boots up and everything is looking good. I start up GO and CPUZ and sit back and read OC Forum. Wait a minute...I see this:





First off, from my understanding GO shouldn't be doing different numbers of tests per core. I could be wrong though.

However, my clock speed is still bouncing around 5FSB!!!

I'm getting the Expert board in a few days. Back off and leave the hell alone? Bad clock chip? Plus my PWMIC is running 75° under load!

This might also explain why I couldn't get very good clocks with the 3700?

PWMIC is running 75° under load!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm hopeing that's F and not C....Mine max's at 37°C.........

How are your rails on your PSU? My FSB does change, but usually only 3mhz at MOST....

Orthos for me also does the same tests on each cpu, so that's kinda weird too....

Also, why is Orthos saying your at 195x12 when you are really at 260x9!? Is it the latest version?

EDIT: Also, I'd run 2xprime95 for testing...seems to be a better test then orthos IMHO....

iLLestOne said:

PWMIC is running 75° under load!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm hopeing that's F and not C....Mine max's at 37°C.........

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Nope, C. Look below.

How are your rails on your PSU? My FSB does change, but usually only 3mhz at MOST....

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Well, they are in the .jpg below. I haven't double checked the rails since I first setup the PSU, but they were pretty close to what MBM reported.

Orthos for me also does the same tests on each cpu, so that's kinda weird too....

Also, why is Orthos saying your at 195x12 when you are really at 260x9!? Is it the latest version?

EDIT: Also, I'd run 2xprime95 for testing...seems to be a better test then orthos IMHO....

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You got me. It is version 0.41.110.18. And I started using this because dual prime had run 4 tests on core one, but hadn't finished 1 on core 2. However since then I also did the hotfix, so maybe it is better at load balancing.

That's some crazy temp for your PWMIC and your chipset seems a little hot too...I'd try to get some better case cooling if I were you.

Also, I know some DFI boards don't like certain memory dividers. I remember someone saying that the 5/6 divider would always cause prime to fail, no matter what.

To find out what is causing it to fail at 260, I'd bump down the memory divider once more, just to make sure it is your cpu and not your ram that is faulty. If all is well, then you know it's your ram...if it still fails, I'd put a fan over your PWMIC and maybe turn the chipset fan up a little or replace it, lol.

iLLestOne said:

That's some crazy temp for your PWMIC and your chipset seems a little hot too...I'd try to get some better case cooling if I were you.

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Well, according to DFI, the PWMIC is rated to 90°C, and the case is pretty open right now. And it is Priming. I will be getting the Expert in a few days...

Also, I know some DFI boards don't like certain memory dividers. I remember someone saying that the 5/6 divider would always cause prime to fail, no matter what.

To find out what is causing it to fail at 260, I'd bump down the memory divider once more, just to make sure it is your cpu and not your ram that is faulty. If all is well, then you know it's your ram...if it still fails, I'd put a fan over your PWMIC and maybe turn the chipset fan up a little or replace it, lol.

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Well, it primed for about 2 hours at 260 with RAM at 3/4 (150), when it is Mushkin DDR500 RAM. I think it was Clockgen not being able to hold the clock that caused it to crash. Or it could have been the divider, I was running it at 133 when it crashed. What bothers me the most is it is still bouncing around. Btw, with clockgen it was bouncing about once or twice a second. With the BIOS it is doing it for a second once or twice a minute.

i never use a windows based oc program for my CPU oc, not to even 'try something'

smokie mcpott said:

i never use a windows based oc program for my CPU oc, not to even 'try something'

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Sticky
http://www.ocforums.com/showthread.php?t=391768

First and third blue text lines.

sorry, but after a corrupt windows install, i quickly learned about BIOS, and decided that i will stick to the 'old school' method.
i never stated that it was bad for everyone, but i personally will not try it again

I'd agree...I followed that sticky and used clockgen on my 3200....but on my 4400 x2, i've only used bios....i never really trusted windows based oc programs....not to say they don't work, clockgen seemed to work just fine when I used it, but I still like using the bios W/ a fast rig, reboots take no time at all....I usually just test when I go to bed, and if it's stable I use it all day, then up it again at night before I go to bed...seems to work pretty good for me at least.

However I would like to point out that even with just setting things in the BIOS and monitoring them, I see a signifigant clock bounce. I backed it down to 250FSB and I'm not seeing as much as I was at 260FSB, so I thinking the clock isn't stable above 250FSB .

But the Expert board I traded for just arrived, so I'll be switching motherboards over. We'll see how it goes.

Well, the CPU is 38°C, the PWMIC is now 49°, and the chipset is running 50-55°. Clocks seem a litte more stable, but I'm going to be working my way back up from scratch.

That's good to hear you got your temps down, but they should go down even lower

You should run some dual prime tonight and see how it does...good luck!

iLLestOne said:

That's good to hear you got your temps down, but they should go down even lower

You should run some dual prime tonight and see how it does...good luck!

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Well the idle temps are in my signature, with the PWMIC occasionally dropping as low as 38. When I was priming after the motherboard change I notice the PWMIC was getting up to about 66°C-68°C and I was looking around the case for a good spot to mount a fan to blow on the PWMIC area, when I noticed this:


(btw, the photo is old, from back when I first made up the case) The cutout is at the top of the side, and the 120mm fan on the opposite side of the case is also on the top. So I fipped the side with the cutout so that it was at the bottom instead of the top. Inside of 5 minutes the PWMIC was about 58°C under load. Didn't think.

Edit: Btw, I'm at 2747 (305x9) and no problems. Seems to be overclocking well!